Be good to your knees and feet

So you have decided to turn your garage into your workout area. Have you really thought about the cement garage flooring and how it might affect your joints? Do yourself a favor and pad the floor with rubber mats or workout flooring before you start working out. You can buy workout flooring sections at Home Depot. They make them for areas that people stand long hours on the job. Those same mats work out fine as cushions for workout areas.

If you decide not to have some sort of flooring over the cement floor you will be suffering from knee or back pain in about 2 weeks after you start working out in your garage.

Has the economy affected our eating habits?

With the rise of food costs and the high unemployment rate you would thank that food consumption would be down. Before you say yes or no, let's look at some facts. McDonald's is experiencing a boom in sales. They have opened up 100's of new locations since the recession began. The next report is that many more people than usual are suffering from depression as a result of job loss or just worrying about losing a job. A most of us know, people turn to comfort foods to battle depression.

Several people that I personally know are actually cutting back on other expenses in order to buy food. One even got rid of their pets, another decided not to pay for motorhome insurance on his RV because it will sit parked for the next 8 months.

The bottom line is that even when times are hard people will still eat and often overeat just to feel better about their lives.

My favorite diet foods

I love fruit and vegetables. I was not always like that. I remember hating peas when I was a kid, I still do as an adult. Salads were rare at my house when I was growing up. It was meat and potatoes with often a vegetable I was not fond of.

Fast forward to married life and learning about Chinese and Mexican food with salad bars thrown in for good measure. Of course my favorite diet is one that includes lots of seafood, salads and raw vegetables. Raw, uncooked vegetables was one item that I never had as a kid. I think celery was the only one I can remember.

When I was pregnant I had a craving for all kinds of fruit, yep healthy stuff! My only true weakness was ice cream, unfortunately it still is.

Think twice before you try intestinal medications

I think we can all agree that diarrhea is bad for your body. You can in fact die from it. So why do people insist on using diet products and diet supplements that are known to cause diarrhea? Because they are misinformed, that's why. Diarrhea is NOT a good way to lose weight. Once your body goes into diarrhea mode it often takes days for it to get back to normal and for some people it might not.

Diet products are not the only medical products that can cause diarrhea. One of the major ones on the market today, are colon cleansers. Those things are utterly useless. You can find all kinds of colon cleanse reviews online, most of them written by those very same companies that make the stuff.

The bottom line is, if it has diarrhea as a side effect then don't use it - period.

Creating a spreadsheet to track your diet

When my hubby was diagnosed as borderline diabetic he was so determined to change his diet and lose some weight he tracked his daily food intake on his laptop. He tracked everything from each calorie, carbohydrate, fat content and even the weights of the foods. This went on for a few months, he even had the information backed up on a Custom usb drive that he kept on his key chain.

He was so proud of the information he was keeping track of. Finally he was losing weight and after 9 weeks he got the hang of what to eat and what his limits were. He lost 60 pounds in one year and kept the weight off. He is no longer anywhere near diabetic.